Editorial: Travel has its ups and downs

Cramped plane seats top the list of travel woes. Photo/Thinkstock

A survey has come out revealing Kiwis' biggest travel woes, and some of the gripes are pretty understandable.

Unrealistic expectations and cramped plane seats top the list while travel delays and sitting next to kids on planes was up there too.

When you pay good money for a holiday, it can be reasonable to have a whinge if things aren't up to standard.

I'm the first to pick up the phone and dial reception at a hotel if the cleaning isn't up to scratch or the room isn't what we've asked for.

A hotel in New York was a real shocker. The website made it look amazing yet the actual reality was pretty disgusting.

But it's my view that you should also learn to take the good with the bad.

If you can't relax and enjoy a holiday, what's the point of spending the entire time nitpicking about what could be better.

On the same trip to New York, we had a shocker trying to get home.

The city experienced its biggest snow storm in 50 years and all the public transport and airports had been closed in the days leading up to our departure.

It took us two hours to get to the airport instead of the usual 40 minutes and by the time we got there we had missed our 8am flight. So too had many others so we joined another queue to catch the next flight to Los Angeles.

The rest of the day was spent shuffling up the queue trying to catch flights every hour to Los Angeles only to be told "I'm sorry this flight is now full, you'll have to join the queue over there for the next flight".

By 5pm, the standard line changed to "I'm sorry, this flight is now full, you'll have to come back tomorrow."

Despite wanting to scream, we made a conscious decision to make the best of the situation.

Some things are just not worth moaning about.